Author: Brand Studio Editors

The “M” word—Millennial, a term that’s launched a thousand eye rolls. Even the laziest observer of pop-culture media can parrot back the sentiment agreed upon by so many op-eds—those born after 1984 (a debatable date) are an impulsive bunch, who are as entitled as they are fickle. But what if we’ve all got it wrong?

There are roughly 86 million Millennials in the US with an estimated $200 billion in annual buying power. Simply put, their purchase behavior matters. It’s no wonder that marketers are consistently trying to understand them. But in this rapidly evolving landscape where every view, every click, every tendency can be quantified, it’s not easy to get, let alone retain, Millennial attention.

In this episode of THE POINT OF ATTACHMENT, we explore the brand loyalty of Millennials and attempt to answer two main questions:

1. Do Millennials care about brands?
2. And are they brand loyal?

To get to the bottom of the matter, we’ve examined a fun pocket of the branding universe: the world of whiskey.

At least, that’s what marketers want you to think. Some of the most successful brands of all time win consumer trust and affection by seeming human. Academics call it anthropomorphism, which is a really horrible word to describe a phenomenon that leads consumers to perceive human qualities and characteristics in inhuman things.

In this all-new episode of THE POINT OF ATTACHMENT, we explore new insights and research on anthropomorphism. We start in conversation with Professors Ann McGill and Maferima (Rima) Touré-Tillery, who recently co-authored a study that was published in the Journal of Marketing. It explored whether anthropomorphic brands were more persuasive than non-anthropomorphic brands.

There’s little doubt that Google has become one of the world’s most envied companies, largely because of its renowned culture of innovation. Brand Studio’s Larry Vincent had the privilege of interviewing Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg, advisor to CEO Larry Page, on their new book, How Google Works. The book delves into the principles and practices that helped make Google so successful and forward-thinking.

It was a revealing conversation and the video is now available from Live Talks LA.

As we do from time-to-time, Brand Studio staffers compared notes and submitted their favorite stories about brands in the news over the past week. You may have missed some of these in the flow of the normal news cycle, so allow us to give you a quick recap.

As we do from time-to-time, Brand Studio staffers compared notes and submitted their favorite brand-related stories of the past several weeks. You may have missed some of these in the flow of the normal news cycle, so allow us to give you a quick recap.

As we do every week, Brand Studio staffers compared notes and submitted their favorite brand-related stories. You may have missed some of these in the flow of the normal news cycle, so allow us to give you a quick recap.

Which social media brands do US consumers feel they can’t live without? That was the question we explored in Brand Studio’s latest wave of Brand Dependence research. Partnering once again with our friends at uSamp, we surveyed 2,006 US adults 18+ and had them evaluate 15 popular social media brands using the Brand Dependence methodology. Brand Dependence measures how strong of a connection people have to a brand (brand-self connection) as well as how easy their thoughts and feelings about a brand come to mind (prominence). The combined metrics result in a Brand Dependence score that ranges from 0 to 100.

Facebook (43), Instagram (42), YouTube (39), Pinterest (38) and reddit (38) had the strongest scores overall. However, the scores shifted a great deal when filtered by gender, age and household income. For example, men scored Snapchat, reddit and vine significantly higher than women, whereas women scored Facebook and Pinterest much higher than men.

In January, UTA Brand Studio launched the Brand Dependence™ Index (BDI), with new brands and categories being added to the study each quarter.

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Developed in an exclusive partnership with uSamp, Brand Dependence™ is a quantitative research methodology built upon pioneering academic work on brand attachment by Deborah MacInnis and C. Whan Park, at the USC Marshall School of Business.

Along with colleagues at other academic institutions around the world, Deborah MacInnis and C. Whan Park, both professors at USC’s Marshall School of Business, are the creators of the pioneering quantitative research methodology used in UTA Brand Studio’s Brand Dependence research.

Traditional brand equity metrics include awareness, familiarity, favorability, and credibility. Brand Dependence™ actually considers how people see brands as relating to themselves—being part of their own identity, sharing their values and beliefs. When coupled to traditional metrics, BDI provides powerful insights on how to make a brand indispensable to consumers, employees and investors.

Inaugural BDI Findings

Laurence Vincent, UTA Brand Studio founder and executive director, unveiled the inaugural BDI during a presentation entitled “The Story of Attachment” at the recent International CES in Las Vegas, as reported by re/code. This index focused on technology and consumer electronics and revealed that Microsoft and Samsung topped the list of technology brands that consumers relate more to themselves and say they “can’t live without.”